


A Piano Bar in Manhattan (January, 1998)

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: 1_million_words, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them is who the other thinks he is. A 'what if they met earlier' story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haldoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haldoor/gifts).



> This is an AU story I had on my brain for a while: Mistaken Identity fic. Also an ongoing gift to Haldoor as it was started, officially, as part of her birthday celebration last year.

“Excuse me, are you… Steve?” 

Danny felt funny walking around the bar to ask it, but he couldn’t help noticing how they’d each been watching the door for twenty minutes, listening to song after plinky, plunky song only a few yards away from each other. 

No way: On third glance, this kid was nothing like the suave gigolos Fred always sent him. Too pretty, too earnest. But a soft smile broke over the guy’s face at the question, made it even sweeter to look at. Wow. This could be … very nice. 

“Yes, that’s me. You’re Daniel? Freddie didn’t do you justice when he described you.”

“Oh, yeah? What did he say?”

“Strawberry blond, short hair,” Steve twisted the remains of his drink around in a circle with his fingertips. “Bookish. Kind of a … nerd.”

“Really?” 

Okay, that made no sense. 

“Well, I guess it’s all relative. I told Fred I want an all-nighter. You’re good with that, right, gorgeous?”

The guy was blushing. _Blushing._ Alarm bells sounded.

“I thought maybe we’d see how it goes….”

Danny huffed out a laugh, thinking he was kidding but … yeah, no. He wasn’t.

“Let’s start over from the top,” Danny waved to the bartender, pointing at their glasses for refills. “Why are you here in this bar?”

“For a date,” The kid said, flustered now, like he was being cross-examined. “I wanted to see New York while I have a chance, while I’m living on the east coast and… _my_ buddy has a buddy who lives here who… apparently is not you.”

“So you’re not a high-priced male hooker?”

“Um… no fucking way. Sorry. Language, but…the thought....”

“And it just _happens_ that you have a friend named Freddie and I have a guy who _hooks me up_ who is named Fred and… wow, what are the odds?”

“I’m so embarrassed….” The guy looked it, cheeks pink. He hadn’t been too sure about this whole date thing from the top, clearly. Inexperienced. Probably deeply in the closet to just about everyone but his besties.

“So where is your date?” Danny asked, and Steve went even redder. 

“I’ve been wondering that,” he said, finally. “I’m thinking he walked in and saw me and left.”

He seemed confused as to why Danny might consider that funny.

“Guessing it was stage fright. Your friend told him all about you. He screwed up his courage, and then he stayed the hell home.”

Steve nodded like yeah, maybe that was possible, too.

“Huh,” Danny said. “I just saved almost half a grand on a hooker who didn’t show up. You’re free. How about we go Dutch on the date you had planned?”

~~*~~

“So you’ve been at Annapolis for… not quite two years. That makes you, what, not even twenty-one?”

“In two months,” Steve said. “I’ll be twenty-one.”

“No wonder the baby face,” Danny pinched it, and Steve swatted his hand away.

“You’re barely a year and a half older than me,” Steve pointed out, though they both knew there was a significant difference in Danny’s level of worldliness… and world-weariness.

“Yeah, but I worked a street beat right out of school. That’ll age you. Once you see some action you’ll know what I mean. Hell, we’ll probably even out eventually.”

They were standing on the observation deck at the Empire State Building, gazing at the lights stretching all the way to Queens. Danny had been impressed with Steve’s game plan: A walk through the west side of the city and Times Square to a hole in the wall Italian place with food that knocked both his socks off, followed by a long chat in line on the way up here to the top of the world. 

Daniel, wherever he was in all those lights, had missed out. Big time.

“Did you rent a room?”

“The Plaza,” Steve said, shrugging when Danny rolled his eyes like ‘stop it’. “I figured if the date went well, I’d have somewhere classy to take him. And if it didn’t… I’d have a nice room at least. I won’t have that again for a long time.”

“How many people have you slept with, Steven?”

“Three,” he answered fast, eyes going out to the view.

“And how many of them guys?”

“Zero. This was… I thought away from it all I could get up the nerve to…”

“Your first time should be special.”

“It should be over,” Steve snapped. “Behind me. That’s what it should be.”

Danny ran a hand over Steve’s back, reached up to kiss him, a quick press of lips to lips.

“How about we check in to the room you sank so much money on? And I’ll try to take care of both for you.”

~~*~~

“Hell… yeah… go _oo_ od.. this is…you’re a _naaa..tural_ , babe,” Danny was happily topping from the bottom, fucking the bed, fighting off the urge to actually bite the pillow while Steve slammed into him over and over and… 

_Shit_ … the shy went away the second Steve got naked, apparently. 

Danny had been ready to take it slow and gentle, but once they got past the kissing and the stripping down, Steve’s inner tiger had show up. He’d leaned back in bed, fucking up into Danny’s fist, eyes glued on his hands, his mouth as Danny sucked and pumped him, only letting them close long enough to grunt out a stuttering shout when he came. 

Then Danny had the pleasure of giving him his first very first taste of cock, and wasn’t that gorgeous to watch? Steve had licked him from top to bottom, a hand finding Danny’s balls, a hint of teeth at the base of his shaft, nipping their way back north.

“Fuck, yes… just keep giving me what you like, baby…do what feels good when you’re getting it, okay?” he’d asked, and Steve had moved up to swallow him down, groaning around him, head already starting to rise and fall slowly, easily, eyes going lost and dreamy like he was in goddamn _cock sucking heaven_ and ohhhhh….

Danny might have greyed out there, for a second, right before he came.

They’d hit the richly tiled shower with the gold fixtures, and Danny had introduced him to the pleasures of a finger fuck. He’d made Steve jump, reach wildly for something to hold onto, and they nearly ended up in a groaning, giggling pile on the shower floor.

“Watch it,” he’d snickered in his ear. “Happy to be your first.. don’t want to be your first sex injury.”

If Steve’s nerves had come back at all, it was once they were flat out in bed, when Danny reached for the supplies on the nightstand. He saw Steve’s smile fade and he shook his head, reassuring.

“This is not going where you think, okay? You’re topping tonight. Good?”

“Very,” Steve had taken the condom from him with relief and a trace of returning glee. “Thank you, Danny.”

Now Danny was the one who felt like a thank you was in order – shit the guy had some nice moves; flicks and twists of his hips that made Danny ache inside and out, the way Steve pinned him down, a hand hard on his hip, the other just south of his shoulder pressing deep into his back.

“Can’t pound your little girlfriends like this, can you?” Danny egged him on, thrusting back, squeezing as hard as he could around that hot load of almost virgin cock. “C’mon, let go, fuck me harder, baby, hard as you want, so damn good, yeah…”

It worked, Steve panting and pumping him faster, until he couldn’t see straight, until they were both a grunting, rippling, sweaty mess tumbling over the edge together.

“Son of a … bitch,” Danny stopped to moan and bite his lip as Steve pulled out. “In case you’re wondering, ‘cause you seem like the type who will… you’re fucking good at this.”

“Oh…” Steve had dropped to his back, done in, too. “Good. I did. Wonder.”

“Of course you did.”

~~*~~

Steve had drifted off after that and Danny had showered up once more, alone. He was sitting, dressed, on the edge of the bed when Steve's eyes opened.

“Knew you wouldn’t stay,” Steve said, but it wasn’t a complaint, just an observation.

“Don’t suppose you plan on making it up to the city again while you’re in school?”

“Maybe but… honestly, no. Not much leave, and I use what I get to go home to Hawaii.”

“ _Hawaii_?” Danny said it like it was Mars. “Oh, yeah… sadly… you are never gonna see me again, beautiful. Probably just as well, huh? Hard to top a great first time.”

“I … uh… can’t disagree with that part.” 

Danny dropped down to kiss him goodbye and wow, he had a delicious ‘going nowhere, slowly’ kiss, too…

“Don’t let them beat it out of you, okay? That sweet streak; it’s… good stuff.”

“Okay,” Steve slid down, gathering pillows, ready for sleep. “Be careful, Danny.”

“You, too.”

He’d stood in the hallway for a few seconds, hand on the doorknob after it shut behind him and he almost, nearly turned and knocked again.

Then he left.

This was why he dated girls but rented boys; double the risk of heartbreak, otherwise. 

He’d be worrying about this one for … a while.


	2. Two Years Later

“Yo. Lunch?”

“Okay, first thing? My name is not _‘yo,’_ ” Danny didn’t look up from the newspaper on his desk, kept on scrawling out the letters he was doodling on the notepad next to it. “Secondly, if you want the honor of my company then maybe ask like a fully evolved Homo Sapien?”

“Screw you,” Alan, his former beat partner, grinned from Danny’s office doorway as he said it, though. “Five minutes, and we’re leaving. Be there or….”

“…yeah, yeah…be a quadrangle. Maybe I will. If you’re lucky.”

Danny waved him off, eyes still on the photograph in the upper corner of the next to the last page of the paper: _“SEALS in Training Take on Their Toughest Challenge Yet in Coronado, CA”_

Steven …. McGarrett. He wrote it out on the notepad once more, letter by letter. He’d already jotted it five or six times – a few in block print, the rest in cursive.

So that was his last name? Steven McGarrett from Hawaii, who was still in training but apparently in California and not in Maryland anymore.

He’d recognized him immediately, even though the photo was relatively small and full of men in motion, emerging sodden from the ocean. He remembered that shy smile and brief, soft laugh and wondered how it all jibbed with the hard-as-rocks guy with a buzz cut and a hell of a glare in the picture.

Danny never did make it to lunch. It took the hour to call around, to track down exactly where the BUD/S class was located in Coronado and figure out how to phone their housing unit.

“Steven?”

“Yeah? Um… sorry, yes. Hi. Who is this?”

“I don’t know if you’ll remember, but it’s Danny Williams. From New York. Well, from Jersey but…. you know? The bar on Eighth Avenue. You thought you were meeting a date and….”

There’s a certain silence when someone doesn’t know what you’re talking about. There’s a very different one when they do, but don’t know what to say back. 

“I can’t … discuss this. It’s a busy dorm, you know? One phone line for eighteen guys and …. uh…

“I get it,” Danny said. “There’s a line behind you. It’s just…. I saw a picture of you in the paper and it made me happy. Seeing you, what? Two years later? I wanted to ask if you’re okay and how it’s all going?”

“I read it. That article,” Steve’s voice took on a harder edge. “Gotta tell you, I wish they’d either tell the full story or skip it entirely. ‘Cause a picture like that only captures a split second. People look at it and maybe they think, ‘good for them, glad someone can do it’ then they move on with their day. But it doesn’t show how ….hungry and ….fucking exhausted and… _humiliated_ you feel. It can’t show any of that, can it?”

“Don’t let them beat it out of you. That good heart of yours.”

“I remember you saying that,” Steve’s voice softened. “I remember…the whole night. Listen, I’m learning a lot and I’m better for it. It’s not my life I hate, its cutesy news articles that pretend to portray it accurately to others. You know?”

“I don’t,” Danny traced the outline of Steve’s name on his notepad with a finger. “But I can kind of imagine.”

There was a pause and Steve’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Do the letters DADT mean anything to you?”

“No, babe. Not so much."

“I … have a career not to fuck up. I gotta go.”

Danny felt like crying when he put the phone down. He hadn’t felt that way over _anything_ in…. how long? Years. 

The things people go through. 

Eventually, he pushed the picture to the most distant folder in his drawer – the one reserved for cases he considered dead but couldn’t bear to trash, either. 

No point beating yourself up over someone who already put you in a folder and filed you in some mental cabinet.

~*~

“You have a visitor,” The office manager stuck her head in one Friday morning about six months later. “Says he has info on a case. And he’ll only tell you.”

“Yeah?” Danny craned his neck, then jumped with surprise when he saw who was coming in behind her.

“Hi, thanks for seeing me….” Steve reached out to shake hands like he was someone random off the street, waiting a few beats. Then he gestured to where Anna was walking out of earshot. “Sorry, I don’t like lying, but…I thought….”

“So? How did you do?

“How did I…. Oh! I made it. Survived it. Graduated.”

“Congrats, babe.”

“Thank you. Now comes the tricky part: Putting it all to use.”

“You grew up,” Danny gestured toward the chair by his desk. “I see that much.”

Indeed, there was no more boy in there; Steve looked self-assured, comfortable in his skin. Zero shyness – and maybe even something a little cocky in its place. 

“May I remind you we’re only about twenty months apart?”

“Yeah. But we actually seem it now. You were so tender back when… I thought vice might bust into that fancy suite and toss my ass in jail for nailing a kid.”

“Um… Danny. _I_ nailed _you_.”

“I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble with that phone call.”

“No,” Steve dropped the edge and the kidding as quickly as Danny did. “I felt awful; I was so sorry I couldn’t talk with you. Not to mention it was a bad week; I could have used the conversation. So as soon as I got back east…”

“I’m thinking about asking my girlfriend to marry me,” Danny saw him flinch, actually shrink in the chair a little. “Someday, I mean. New girlfriend. Not the one from back then. But I haven’t, ‘cause it’s way too soon. It’s… she would laugh in my face and ask where I got the time machine popping that question this fast…”

“I didn’t come here expecting to jump into bed with you, Danny.”

“You didn’t only drop by to say ‘hey’ either.”

“Right,” Steve kicked back, looking mildly embarrassed at being revealed. “Kinda forgot; you are a detective, aren’t you?”

“Did you rent a suite at the Plaza again this time?”

“No,” Steve’s softer smile showed up on his face; the one that lit up his eyes. Like he was remembering it.

“That’s fine. Room’s on me. You can grab dinner.” Danny braced for an objection, for Steve to wave him off, but he only nodded, silent.

~*~

“Are you still…. How do I put this…” Steve ran his fingertips over his own lips, a random gesture as he searched for the right words on their way toward Times Square. “…’seeing’ guys?”

“Occasionally,” Danny shrugged. “I will stop before I ask her. I swear. _Fuck_ , I will miss dick, though. And… strong arms; the adrenaline, wrestling for top and not sure if you wanna win or lose. You know?”

Steve made a sound that said he did.

“You want it, Danny? Marriage? The whole… rest of your life thing?”

“Yes. Ninety eight percent of the time. Rachel is….one of a kind. I’d be crazy not to go for it. How about you? Got someone?”

“A couple of someones. Friends. That’s all, nothing serious not… like, girlfriends or boyfriends…”

“Hmmm…some of each, huh? So why aren’t you dating either? Like, officially?”

“’Cause I am far from sure,” Steve slowed to a stop at the corner as the light went against them and cars started rolling by. “About anything. Absolutely…anything.”

“Been there,” Danny nudged him with his hip. “I have so been there.”

~*~

A sweet, uncomplicated tumble is what Danny had expected; something along the lines of ‘hey, nice to see you again.’ Instead, he got Steve pulling him in close, holding him, kissing him like he was memorizing every touch and tongue stroke. 

It was disorienting. Confusing.

Steve peeled him slowly apart - button by snap by zip, then urged Danny to sit on the edge of the bed and knelt between his knees. He urged his thighs apart with his fingers, kissing and licking, thumbs wandering- exploring and kneading all the places where Danny’s hip met leg and leg met ass cheeks.

“Thought you said you wanted me to fuck you?” he ran his own fingers over Steve’s head, through his hair, wishing there were enough to grab onto.

A second later he was just glad to have gotten the question out as that mouth took him in and suckled and bobbed and his own hips responded, jumping involuntarily and….s _hiiii_ iit.

Steve made a sound that said it was very much what he expected.

“Better go light, then, pretty, or you’re gonna…. _ahhhhh_ …. be so very disappointed.”

“Asking a lot…” Steve said when he pulled off, eventually. He gripped Danny’s cock a little too tight as he did grinning at the gasp it got him. “With this waving at me? Taunting me?”

“Forgot what a….ohhhhh…what an enth _ussss…ia_ stic cocksuker you are…”

Danny fought for composure but lost, falling back on his elbows. His lungs felt empty, straining despite his best efforts to fill them, his eyes watering with ‘so good, so good…’

He pushed at Steve’s forehead with the palm of one hand - partly to slow him down and partly to watch himself slide in and out of that mouth, over Steve’s sweetly stretched lips and….

“Ookay… seriously, keep going or stop. Jesus, fuck …. _please_ … either one, but…."

“All right…” Steve stopped, breathing the words against his skin.

Danny closed his eyes while Steve rummaged around on the nightstand. He thought about dirty sneakers and piles upon piles of steaming garbage roasting in the sun.

There was a crinkle of paper and the pop of a cap and when he opened his eyes Steve was kneeling up high, head down, lips skimming along Danny’s dickhead, barely. 

Steve was angled, the bedside lamp making the sweat on his chest, his arms and back shine. One wet hand started tugging at his own cock, the other reaching behind himself, fingers finding his hole and sliding inside. 

“How about you use my mouth exactly the way you want, Danny? And I’ll….”

Steve fucked down harder on his fingers and gave an obscene, needy grunt -- so involuntary, instinctive that it made Danny dizzy.

He leaned back again, watching while Steve fucked his own palm, his own fingers and he couldn’t resist the lure of that mouth so close; he rubbed his cock over Steve’s lips, his tongue, fed him his dick an inch or two at a time, taking away again, teasing until Steve was half gone, too, panting and twisting, eyes going distant and lost and….

“Get the hell up here…” Danny dragged him into bed. “No, no…. over, c’mon…”

Steve was ready to go face down ass up, but Danny slapped it and urged him over.

“You are too damn big. I am not climbing Mount Hunky Dory right now, no way no…. how…”

They were both chuckling, snorting with laughter. Then Steve’s knees were up around his ribs as Danny tossed him some pillows, searching for the right angle for them to kiss while they fucked and…

It was just like the first time; hot and sweet and awkward and…. 

No, not like the first time. Better. Because they were so evenly matched now.

And had each thought about it – wanted it – so many nights since.

 

~*~ 

“I came here to thank you,” Steve said. “That’s why I’m in town.”

This time it was Danny who had drifted off, and Steve who was sitting on the edge of the bed all dressed and leaving. 

“No thanks needed.”

“I have to disagree. My life isn’t easy but… if you hadn’t been in that bar, Danny? Hadn’t been so decent and kind? You made me feel I deserve whatever life I want.”

“You really needed permission?”

“A lot of people do. You’d be surprised. Anyway, I came here because I wanted to say that. And not over a phone line.”

“Don’t suppose you want to keep in touch? We could…”

Steve stood, shaking his head and dipping back in for one fast, soft kiss.

“Ask her sooner than later, okay? And don’t worry about me anymore. I’m good.”

Danny stayed in the room the rest of the night. But he didn’t sleep much.

~*~ 

He pushed the memory of that night back the same way he had the photo. Then life got busy – work and wedding planning and…

The next time Steve crossed Danny’s mind he and Rachel had just finished their first dance. They were going separate ways to mingle with their guests.

It couldn’t be the best sign, thinking of him at that moment. And kind of wishing he were there - a glass of champagne in his hand and that soft smile on his face. 

There to congratulate Danny, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this went from a one chapter story to three. ;). If my dates/timelines for them are off, please take it all in the very AU story mode this is in.


	3. Third Time's the Charm

_“You! Hands up, don’t move!”_

“Who are you?!”

 _“Who are_ you? _I am Detective Danny…”_

“Commander Steve McGarrett. This is …”

_“….Williams…”_

“…my father’s house.”

_“Put your weapon down now!”_

“No, you put _your_ weapon down, and you show me your…”

It was dark in the garage, dust motes spinning wildly in the few beams of light making it through the windows. They’d been shouting hard from the get-go; barking the words at each other. Steve barely heard the guy’s first name and never heard the last. But something about the voice, his stance, the set of his mouth made him freeze.

“Steven?” The guy stopped dead, too, gun trained between Steve’s neck and shoulder.

It wasn’t possible. 

“Danny.”

Steve was taken aback at how not-so-very-surprised Danny suddenly looked, now that it clear it wasn’t a suspect he’d walked in on.

“Oh…. crap.” Danny looked down as he holstered his gun, shaking his head. “I kept telling myself maybe was a coincidence. There had to be a couple of McGarrett families on Oahu, right? But in the back of my mind I kind of guessed there aren’t.”

“What the hell? What are you doing here?”

“That is so not a question with a five word answer.” 

Danny took a few steps his way and Steve saw that he was thinner, but with a heavier walk. He looked tired-- as if he’d been fighting to keep afloat so long, he’d forgotten to look for the shore as he paddled.

He wondered how he looked to Danny after all this time.

“Look, I’m sorry about your father, I so…truly am,” he heard him say. “But you can’t be here, it’s still an active crime scene.”

“Doesn’t _seem_ that active.” 

Steve hadn’t meant to take a cheap shot, but then he felt how his chin was jutting out and he realized he really _was_ pissed at the apparent lack of drive in the investigation. And it was Danny’s case; Danny who wasn’t trying hard enough on his dad’s behalf.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, look, I want to but I can’t share any information with you.”

“Can’t? What do you mean, you … _can’t?_ ” Steve walked over and got a little in his face. “You’re big with the ‘you can’t’ and the ‘I can’t’ – like I’m a stranger to you. As if we never…what the hell is wrong with you?”

“What’s _wrong_ with me?” He pulled himself up, a ‘screw you’ look in his eyes. “Do you expect me to spill out the history of my last freaking ten years for you on command?”

“Yeah. Why not? You were always good at getting to the point, so…talk to me. Talk to me like I’m someone you actually know for a second.”

“I ‘was always’? As in the grand total of maybe fifteen hours we spent together?”

“What. Happened. To. You?” 

Steve turned as he asked, going back to grab the toolbox, sensing it was his only hope of taking it with him. 

“Leave it. It’s evidence and you know it.” Danny muttered the words, nodding at where Steve was clenching the handle tight. “Leave it, or get arrested.”

“Screw that.” he started walking, entirely meaning to go but unsurprised when Danny stopped him, a hand to his chest. “What, you’re gonna call for backup now?”

“No,” Danny pushed. “I’m gonna call an ambulance. ‘Cause if you try to leave with that? We’ll need one.”

It was infuriating -- his father’s blood still on the living room walls and the only person on the island he could maybe hope to talk to as a friend treating him like…

Steve remembered pulling out his iPhone, but he was in a hurt fog for most of his conversation with the governor; later, he would remember Danny’s soft, humorless smirk as he took the oath, as it fully dawned on Danny what was happening.

“Now it’s _my_ crime scene…”

~*~

“Huh….” Steve picked up the frame with the photo of a girl and her doll, looking for Danny in the shape of her face. “…is she your kid?”

He’d found out where Danny was staying, but waited until morning to show up. 

“Yeah. Stunning detective work,” Danny let the door slam. Then it seemed to strike him how intently Steve was peering at the picture, the way a smile was pulling at the corners of his mouth. “That’s Grace. She’s the best thing in my life. Ever.”

“So you and Rachel _did_ get married?”

“Yeah. That was great, too, right up until it wasn’t. She’s why I’m here. Grace, I mean.”

“She’s very cute, Danny. I’ll bet she’s smart, too.”

“Of course. And funny and kind and… I’m biased, but she really is all that and a million wonderful things more.” He took the frame from him and looked at it for a second before he put it down. “What about you? Got kids of your own?”

Steve only shook his head, eyes purposefully blank and Danny huffed out a dry snicker. 

“So… you want me to spill my story but you won’t share?”

“I was six years with the SEALS,” Steve answered. “After that, Naval Intelligence. I haven’t had … made time for much else. Then, last week, I was on the phone with him. I heard it, Danny -- the gunshot. I heard my dad die.”

He could see Danny was close to caving; was ready to walk over and put a hand on his arm for comfort and he wanted that so damn bad, wanted to pull Danny in, to sink into him, to let his whole body relax in a way it hadn’t since the debacle on the helicopter.

But Danny walked the other way, instead, his eyes turning cool and clinical.

“Listen…” Steve tried to keep his voice level. “You take pride in your job. And now…it’s all you’ve got, right, in between visits with Grace? That’s what I’m looking for. So this case isn’t mine now, it’s ours. I’m making you my partner.”

“Just like that? No recourse?”

“Nope.”

“See … _that_? That is exactly why I want nothing to do with you.”

It hurt all the more that Danny could say it calmly, quietly.

“I thought about it, you know? When I moved here. I felt so alone and I wondered how you were, if you were going through the same thing. But now that we’ve met up? I’m not seeing the same guy I knew. And after Rachel tap dancing on my heart, I’ve got almost nothing left in the tank anyway. So, can you please just …go do your thing and let me be? I don’t need another huge disappointment in my miserable life right now.”

“Only want you for your mind, Danny,” Steve hoped his voice could hold the lie. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask for more. You and I are gonna get along great.”

~*~

“Do _not_ question my resolve….”

“I’m warning you, take your finger out of my face…”

Later, they both wished they’d known this would be their interpersonal all-time low point. It would have made it easier.

“Listen to me, you son of a _bitch_ …” Danny remembered gasping after those words came out of his mouth, his vision blurring, feeling like he might puke or his elbow might break or both. “What are you, are you a Ninja? Let go…”

“In front of all these nice people… you don’t have to like me but right now…” 

Steve’s words ran together in his head. All Danny knew was Steve wasn’t letting him up. Was twisting his arm like Danny was one of his G.I. Joe toys when he was eight, maybe, and contemplating how far he could go before it…

“You’re right,” Danny had said the magic words required to get free and then he’d fucking decked him. “I don’t like you.”

Not anymore. Not at all.

He had some crazy thoughts the nights since, lying in bed and failing to fall asleep; about sneaking Grace away and taking her home to Jersey. Where the authorities would find him and toss his ass in jail and…. 

It even drove him to tears; a hopeless kind of sadness he hadn’t felt since the worst days of he and Rachel. Then, he had to get up the next morning and go back to work with Steve again.

It was a really special flavor of hell. For both of them, probably, he had to admit.

~*~

Danny was used to things going bad fast; he wasn’t as used to them getting better the same way.

“What… uh, what is this?”

Steve had casually dropped an envelope on his desk four days after Danny punched him.

He would have been surprised at the apparent peace offering, except Steve had visibly been trying to win him back since their altercation. He was subtle about it – for Steve; giving Danny breathing room, being patient, keeping his voice neutral and even.

Whenever he looked up, there was a good chance he’d find Steve’s eyes on him, watching him do the innocuous, day-to-day crap that needed doing. He felt like he was being lured like a starving, stray dog. Now, apparently, his partner by dictate was attempting to reel him in the final few yards with a juicy steak. 

“Three nights at the Kahala Hotel. It’s your weekend with your daughter, right?” 

Danny picked it up with thoughts of handing it back to him, but Steve barreled through.

“Look, I know you wanna say no but…don’t. It’s fun. You’ll hang by the pool. And they have dolphins - she’ll really like it.”

“Thank you.” Danny said.

As Steve turned to go, he found himself blurting something more- something he didn’t even know was waiting to spill out of him.

“Hey, uh… Mondays.”

“What?” 

Steve looked confused by the verbal hard right turn, almost worried but so hopeful, too. It made Danny’s throat tighten, Steve looking at him the way he did back then; a hesitant kid leaning in toward him with a ton of ‘God, I hope I don’t fuck this up’ in his eyes.

“Mondays- they’re tough. ‘Cause, uh… I drop her off at school in the morning, but then her mother picks her up. And so when I get out of work she’s ….gone. It’s always a rough night for me after that.”

“Maybe you could come by for dinner Monday?” Steve said it so nonchalantly that Danny had to look away so he wouldn’t get caught biting back a smile. “Change up your routine. We can hang out….”

“Yeah. Sounds good. I’ll bring the beer and something to grill.”

“Good. Great.” 

Steve was out of there fast, before anything might jinx it.

Danny felt something achingly excited and hopeful pulling at his heart. And for the first time in a very long time, he let it.

~*~

“Holy hell you are… _fuck me_ …even better at that. ‘S really saying something, you know? ‘Cause…you were already hot shit then...”

Danny was rambling, slurring into the pillow, but Steve got the muffled message loud and clear. He only snorted in response, his own face buried in Danny’s neck, his damp chest stuck to Danny’s back. He wasn’t ready to separate; hips rocking as he rutted inside him a little longer while it still felt so, so good.

Danny’s heart was pounding - Steve could feel that, too; it thudding against the arm he had looped under him as they sank into Steve’s bed.

“You sure you haven’t had some practice lately yourself?” 

He licked and then nipped at an earlobe to distract him as he pulled out of him but Danny still sighed out a broken moan at the sensation – pleasured, very spent.

“Swear I haven’t,” Danny turned on his back, an arm going over his eyes.

“Is this bothering you?” 

Steve was on his side, his fingers tracing random patterns along Danny’s hip, stomach and chest and Danny shook his head no. 

“Don’t know how you are with the after part. It’s kind of a favorite of mine…”

“I’m fine with it,” Danny was surfacing, arm coming down, watching Steve’s face. “I thought you’d be the one to go all cold, you know? Jaded. Guess I’m the one who turned into a bitter little pill.”

He saw Steve’s ‘no shit’ smile for a second before Steve masked it.

“You’ve been through a lot, Danny. I can tell.”

“Don’t get me wrong, you did change. You’re…. certifiable. Or close, at least. But you’ve still got a lot of heart under the attitude. I’m glad.”

“ _I’m_ glad you’re here,” Steve leaned in to add kisses to his shoulders and chest, and it was Danny who snorted this time, fingers running over Steve’s hair.

“I can’t say that yet, babe. That I’m glad I’m here. Be patient with me?”

Steve only nodded and kept going. Danny scratched his head harder, sinking into the feeling of being touched and tended to.

He _was_ glad they’d found each other again, that much he did know; now that he had Gracie but before it was too late for them.

As Steve settled in and they drifted off, he told himself maybe this was how it was meant to happen. 

Maybe this was always going to be their time. 

 

~fin~


End file.
